Innholdsfortegnelse for June 19, 2024 i Country Life

IT is the stuff of sporting legend. Douglas Bunn flew to Germany on New Year’s Eve of 1960, armed with a tape measure. His plan was to replicate the bank fence of the Hamburg Derby course at his own purpose-built showjumping venue in West Sussex, which had opened earlier that year—but, thanks to a snowstorm as he measured the German original, the new Hickstead Derby Bank ended up at least 6in taller. An alternative theory is that Bunn simply wanted his obstacle, at 10ft 6in, to be tougher than anyone else’s—but which is the better story? A practising barrister and a fixture on the British showjumping team throughout the 1950s, Bunn’s dream was to create a competition that would both thrill the public and give British riders the chance to…

WHAT do Downton Abbey and Brideshead Revisited have in common? At the top of a long list would be television titles that refer to estates in the country, rather than the two families’ more valuable London homes. Grantham House or Marchmain House Revisited would have less allure for a nation that is still rooted to the land. By coincidence, both programmes used the same London property for exterior filming. It was also a stand-in for Clarence House in The Crown. The real location, Bridgewater House, SW1, remains unknown to most viewers, as do the Dukes of Bridgewater. There were only three of them, although the 19th-century ‘father of inland navigation’ was among the richest men in England. All the publicity has gone to Highclere Castle, Hampshire, and Castle Howard in…

WITH few important country houses being offered for sale in Suffolk so far this year, Mark Rimell of Strutt & Parker (020–7318 5025) has set the ball rolling with the launch onto the market in last week’s COUNTRY LIFE of historic Priory Hall, which sits in 21 acres of glorious gardens and grounds on the edge of the ancient market town of Hadleigh, halfway between the larger towns of Sudbury and Ipswich. He quotes a guide price of £3.5 million for the impressive Tudor-style house, once owned by the Priory Church of Canterbury Cathedral, which is described by Historic England as ‘a large much-restored building with a probable 16th-century origin… the front has a number of gables and upper storeys projecting [with] all timber framing exposed and all chimney stacks…

A DEAFENING roar tore through the air, a plume of steam rose to join the clouds and a locomotive hurtled into view on September 27, 1825, pulling wagons full of coal, flour and people into Darlington station—and Britain into the modern era. Driven by its inventor, George Stephenson, Locomotion I had set off earlier from Shildon, Co Durham, and would continue onto Stockton: despite the odd hiccup, the world’s first public railway was officially open. Nineteen years later, another train burst into view, this time on canvas, closing in on a hare as it crossed the Maidenhead Bridge. J. M. W. Turner presented his Rain, Steam, and Speed 180 years ago, at the June 1844 Royal Academy exhibition. Long accustomed to capturing Nature’s might—storms, avalanches, raging seas—the artist did the…

MY favourite London theatre right now is the Orange Tree in Richmond. It seats 180 in the round and puts on first-rate plays with tip-top casts. Already this season it has given us Goldsmith and Chekhov and now comes a genuine event: a rare revival of Noël Coward’s final work, Suite In Three Keys, comprising a double bill and a full-length play all set in a Swiss hotel on the shore of Lake Geneva. Seeing the whole lot in one day, you come out admiring Coward for an unexpected quality: his emotional depth. Shadows of the Evening, the first half of the double bill, shows an attempted reconciliation between the wife and mistress of a successful publisher. It sounds like a standard adultery comedy, but the play’s real subject is…

Future Publishing Ltd, 121–141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London W2 6JR 0330 390 6591; www.countrylife.co.uk VENUS owes a debt to Marsilio Ficino. The Renaissance priest and philosopher rescued the Classical goddess from medieval opprobrium when he revived Plato’s notion of a celestial Venus who ‘embraces the splendour of divinity in herself’ and suggested that both she and the carnal twin that had so offended Christian sensibilities in previous centuries had been born from ‘the supreme majesty of God’. It just so happens that his thoughts may have influenced, either directly or through the words of a poet called Angelo Poliziano, a painter in the Medici circle: a certain Sandro Botticelli. The result was a crop of exquisite paintings—above all, Primavera and The Birth of Venus—which makes Ficino’s theory that delighting in…

Apocalypse now LOOKING forward to an afternoon reading in the garden, I was disturbed by what sounded like the noise of helicopters coming in my direction. It was not an airborne fleet, but about 5,000 bees—they had swarmed from their hives at the top of our garden (pictured) to an apple tree beside my deck chair. Our cat was terrified and ran off. My husband and I stood still and waited for them to settle—which they did after about 20 minutes. They have since moved on. I hope to enjoy a more peaceful afternoon in the garden in the future. Janet Whiteman, by email Close to home I WONDER how many readers recognised the location of the photograph of the lady hanging out her washing as, over the garden wall,…

‘I once championed Isambard Kingdom Brunel as the greatest Briton ever to have lived and I still believe he was. No man contributed more, from the invention of artery forceps to great ocean liners, such as the SS Great Britain. He was also responsible for the roof of Paddington Station. Actually, he was responsible for all of Paddington Station and the line that linked it to Bristol–and the trains that ran between the two places. But it’s the roof that fascinates me most of all, because I believe it to be the most beautiful thing in all of London. It’s not the most beautiful thing he ever made, however. That’s Maidenhead Bridge, which even today has the flattest arches ever created. This is the bridge you can’t really see here.…

IT is plausible that the Renaissance was partly inspired by the opportunity it gave artists to depict attractive young women. In the Middle Ages, the art of pagan antiquity aroused grave suspicion and painters and sculptors were largely restricted to Biblical stories, in which alluring women rarely feature. When they do appear, they are a focus of sin or guilt, from Eve with the apple to the Elders lusting after Susanna. The revived popularity, from the 15th century onwards, of classical literature prompted a new receptivity to the art of ancient Greece and Rome. With that came an unprecedented freedom to depict beautiful women, often unclothed: from heroines of mythology, such as Europa or Danaë, to deities, of whom by far the most important was Venus. Her prominence in Western…

IN a larch-boarded studio warmed by burning sawdust, a specialist in cutting-edge medical technology is whittling away at a piece of walnut with a small hook knife. The retired NHS professional dreams of making a writing desk, but, for now, he’s set on carving wooden spoons and has enrolled on a two-day workshop with visiting tutor Louise Forbes. It’s the weekend and many full-time students have decamped to Northumberland for a murder-mystery house party, but there’s still a buzz of activity at the Chippendale International School of Furniture. As Rob from Ottawa in Canada—ex-military, carpenter, arborealist—Eileen, a local teacher, and Pippa, an Edinburgh-based influencer, chip away at their spoons, a few students on the intensive Professional Course are putting in some quiet hours in the main workshop. The atmosphere, despite…

IT’S Friday lunchtime at Babington House in Somerset and among the mini-breakers enviably horizontal beside the pool are locals savvy enough to have bagged a property near enough for a lunch-break dip. Eighty-five miles north-east at Nick Jones’s Oxfordshire outpost, Soho Farmhouse, it’s the same story; members close enough to Great Tew sneak in for a crab linguine in the Hay Barn before dashing back for 2pm calls. The spring research by Knight Frank has shown that houses within a mile of Britain’s top-tier countryside members’ clubs exchange hands in an average of 19.1 weeks, compared with more than 21½ weeks for those six to seven miles away. ‘For every 10 buyers that contact us with a budget of £1 million to £2 million, half mention a desire to be…

Asian courgette and salmon fish balls with chilli egg-fried whole-grain rice Ingredients Serves 4 2 medium courgettes200g salmon, skinless fillet50g plain flour1 lemon, zest ofA small handful fresh basil, chopped500g wholegrain rice, cooked2 spring onions1tspn grated ginger1 red chilli2tbspn soy sauce1 egg Shop-bought sweet chilli sauce (or make your own) and coriander to serve Method ▸ Coarsely grate the courgettes into a colander and sprinkle with a little salt. Leave to sit for 30 minutes, then squeeze out the excess liquid. Add the flesh to a bowl, together with the diced salmon, flour, lemon zest, basil and seasoning. Mix well to combine. Shape into golf-ball-sized balls and chill for an hour. ▸ Heat a splash of a neutral oil in a wok over a mediumto high heat and fry the…

THROUGH the medieval centuries, pagan tradition endowed our countryside with all manner of daunting presences—often heard, unseen, yet sensed, usually feared and rarely named. Religion served to add a layer of awareness, rather than to unseat established rural superstitions. One particular spirit of ancient tradition had an identity—more than one, in fact—and although he emerged as a mainly friendly and at worst mischievous creature, he began his mythical existence as a much darker character. Thanks to Shakespeare, he has come down the years as Puck, but he was also known to our ancestors as Robin Goodfellow, a misnomer if ever there was one, for it contradicted that nasty hobgoblin side. Puck was, indeed, of ancient lineage and versions of him were current in northern European and Balkan culture for 1,000…

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Here come the sunflowers TWO paintings of van Gogh’s beloved sunflowers will be reunited in London this autumn for the first time since they hung together in his Yellow House studio in Arles, France. They will flank La Berceuse (1889), creating a triptych he imagined shortly after completing the works and wrote to his brother, Theo, about, even including a sketch. La Berceuse, which translates as ‘lullaby’ or ‘she who rocks the cradle’, is one of many portraits he completed of Augustine Roulin, the wife of an Arles postman whose family of five were regular models for the artist. Van Gogh meant the vivid greens and reds to be soothing, like a lullaby, and that the viewer should feel transfixed, as if they are the baby being rocked by their…

WHAT a terrible election. Accident-prone Rishi Sunak, dull Sir Keir Starmer and stuntman Sir Ed Davey—where are the Michael Heseltines, the Denis Healeys and the Shirley Williamses? This gaping void means many electors still don’t know how they will vote and, among those who do, one finds little enthusiasm. This is not a Tony Blair or Margaret Thatcher election. Love them or hate them, there is none of the excitement, hope and determination that characterised their campaigns. What should we make of the current manifestos? Most interesting is Labour. Sir Keir is obviously intending to replace the Tories as the natural party of government. The emphasis on growth and enterprise, the commitment not to raise taxes and the emphasis on financial stability—these have been the trademarks of the Conservatives. Of…

Wolterton Hall, Norfolk, part IIThe former home of Keith Day and Peter Sheppard THE 18th-century writer, connoisseur and creator of Strawberry Hill, Horace Walpole, was not an admirer of his uncle and namesake, the builder of Wolterton. In his correspondence with friends, the younger Horace makes numerous allusions to the dirtiness, meanness and poor taste of the older. He did quixotically, however, think very highly of his uncle’s country seat. It was, he suggested, ‘one of the best houses of the size in England’. As described last week, Wolterton was completed in 1741 under the direction of architect Thomas Ripley. Walpole’s qualification over its size was a comment on the way in which the building had been conceived; not as a conventional country house with spreading wings, but as a…

IT took 1,000 beetles to make one of the most celebrated dresses of the 1880s. Audiences gasped when Ellen Terry made her entrance as Lady Macbeth, her costume shimmering with the sheeny wings of green jewel beetles. The showstopper caused Oscar Wilde to remark that Shakespeare’s villainess evidently ‘took care to do her shopping in Byzantium’. Society portraitist John Singer Sargent, who loved to paint lustrous fabrics, was also captivated and the actress posed for him, arms uplifted, crown held aloft, in what was to become one of his most arresting works. ‘W. B. Yeats was right to say “eternity is in the glitter on the beetle’s wing”’ The theatrical trick that dazzled them all was iridescence. One of Nature’s special effects, it occurs when a surface appears to change…

THERE’S a touch of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe about a visit to WOW!house. One moment, you’re in Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour, the next you’re anywhere the designers want you to be: the ballroom of a Sicilian palazzo, a Gothic castle owned by generations of the same family, a bedroom inspired by the paintings of Renaissance and Baroque masters. Now in its third year, WOW!house has never missed a beat; the centre’s role as one of the world’s most influential design hubs attracts a roster of British and international designers at the top of their game. This year, the Watts 1874 Legend Room has been created by Alidad, whose capacity to design exquisite, classically inspired schemes of enormous complexity was first demonstrated at the British Interior Design Exhibition…

The garden at Emmetts Mill, Chobham, Surrey MEANDERING streams and rivers form an irregular web, carrying water down and away from the woods and heaths of the Surrey Hills, eventually flowing into the Thames. In days long ago, the banks of those waterways were peppered with many mills, used for a variety of local industries, such as leather dressing, paper production, fulling wool and grinding grain. Some of them even created a far more volatile substance—gunpowder—a commodity much in demand in the warring 18th and 19th centuries, although, occasionally, it had the unfortunate result of exploding the mill during the process of manufacture. Many of the mills have perished in the past 130 years, but a few still survive, including Emmetts Mill, once used for grinding cereals and now part…

IN the past, major fairs and auctions made London the epicentre of the art market for a few weeks each summer. Last year, after the cancellation of the Masterpiece and Olympia Fairs, it was a scramble to plug the gap with Treasure House in the grounds of Royal Hospital Chelsea, but that made an encouraging start and attracted 30,000 visitors. The second edition (June 27–July 2) promises well, having expanded from 52 to 70 exhibitors. On offer will be five millennia of creativity. Here is a very brief preview, beginning with a wide range of paintings. As I am writing this on the 80th anniversary of D-Day, a Normandy beach scene seems to be the appropriate starting place, although it is a peaceful one and a little way from the…

John Soane’s Cabinet of Curiosities Bruce Boucher (Yale, £35) THE architect John Soane was born late in the reign of George II and died six months before Victoria came to the throne. He lives on in the house and its contents that he gave to the nation, which Bruce Boucher, recently retired as director of the Soane Museum, has lucidly described in his new book. Although a few rooms resemble conventional living spaces of the Regency period, the property, extending across the back of three houses, also acted as an office for Soane’s architectural practice, quite apart from accommodating his diligent and sometimes extravagant collecting (The legacy, April 17). Prof Boucher takes the reader from room to room, unwrapping the timeline of Soane’s career in terms of what he collected…